Philip Seymour Hoffman played Willy Loman in Death of a Salesman in New York in 2012. Photograph: Carolyn Contino/BEI/Rex Features

Although best known for his Oscar-nominated turns in films such as Capote and The Master, Philip Seymour Hoffman was also a visceral stage actor and a sensitive, vigorous theatre director. On stage, he had a savage, vital and vulnerable presence that his film appearances approached, but never really equalled. He traded in a kind of heightened naturalism that made even the most absurd scenarios seem likely. Doughy, slouchy, unhandsome and unkempt, Hoffman distinguished himself with his fierce commitment to preparing roles and his lack of vanity in playing them.

A graduate of New York University, he cut his theatrical teeth downtown, in plays including Caryl Churchill's The Skriker and Mark Ravenhill's Shopping and Fucking, before assuming more high-profile roles. He alternated with John C Reilly as Austin and Lee in Sam Shepard's True West. He played Konstantin in Mike Nichols's revival of The Seagull. And in 2012 he earned a Tony nomination as Willy Loman in Death of a Salesman.

Despite a rumpled charisma, he made a speciality of difficult, unappealing characters to whom he imparted a sense of ravenous need – for love, for esteem, for release, or as in the case of Shepard's brothers, for toast. His ungainly Konstantin seemed a creature of pure, miserable avidity, so desperate for affection and for recognition as a writer.

An actor of substantial intellect, he didn't always let it show. Instead he favoured characters driven by desire, governed by impulse. Watching his work, you worried for the toll it seemed to exact. A few years ago, he told the New York Times, "acting is torturous, and it's torturous because you know it's a beautiful thing. I was young once, and I said, 'That's beautiful and I want that.' Wanting it is easy, but trying to be great — well, that's absolutely torturous."

He also worked as a director, typically for the Labyrinth theatre company, which he co-founded in 1992. A celebrated New York corps, Labyrinth specialises in volatile, talky, rather macho plays. Hoffman pushed his actors towards dynamism, towards abandon. The plays he helmed often threatened to veer out of control yet they would conclude with precision and grace.

Like all actors, Hoffman had his off days. His Iago, in Peter Sellars's pointlessly conceptual Othello, never cohered. Though of course you could make that same criticism of the character. And while I admired his Willy Loman, I sometimes thought he stayed a bit outside the role, admiring his considerable powers rather than fully exercising them.

I'd like to remember him for a role far less celebrated than Willy or Konstantin – as Jack, the reggae-loving stoner limo driver at the heart of Bob Glaudini's Jack Goes Boating, which Hoffman later filmed. Seemingly another of Hoffman's child-men, Jack makes a play for maturity, daring a love affair with a mortician, Connie.

As Connie has a fantasy of boating in Central Park, Jack overcomes a lifelong fear and learns to swim. This was the rare Hoffman role in which his character actually gets what he wants – the perfect reggae song, the girl. The final scene allowed him emotions he didn't often get to portray – contentment, pleasure, a sweetly muted joy.